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A theory about a previous advanced civilization must first and foremost explain how and why it skipped using all the obvious under-your-feet materials and fuel

by wruza 2y ago

A theory about a previous advanced civilization must first and foremost explain how and why it skipped using all the obvious under-your-feet materials and fuel sources in its initial phase.

echelon 2y ago
I'm not a fan of the Silurian hypothesis, but maybe it could have predated Theia? More tantalizing, maybe there's a universe-level Silurian analog where our Big Bang was predated by another universe teeming with intelligent life. Maybe we get Silurian'd ourselves.
- jjk166 2y ago
  Theia hit Earth within 100-150 million years of the formation of Earth. It seems exceedingly implausible that life could not only emerge but go through all the stages of development necessary to achieve advanced intelligence in such a short time compared to what it took the "second" time around.
  - wruza 2y ago
    And in that period it wasn’t particularly habitable either. An observer may not find that big of a difference between a recently formed planet and a planet recently hit by another planet.
Terr_ 2y ago
Twist: Oil and coal are the post-breakdown byproducts of the stuff they wanted to clean. :p
yencabulator 2y ago
Well, the carbon our civilization has been burning started forming about 350-300 million years ago (from Carboniferous period, it's in the name), and the Silurian period was 420-440 million years ago, so what Silurians would have had under their tentacles isn't what we bootstrapped our society with. Maybe they used plenty of the under-your-tentacles fuel sources, but it's been a very long time since, and it's hard to tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
ComplexSystems 2y ago
One answer is that this "initial phase" may have lasted a total of a few hundred years, which is a tiny blip on geological scales. Even with humans, it looks like it's going that way.

by wruza 2y ago

A theory about a previous advanced civilization must first and foremost explain how and why it skipped using all the obvious under-your-feet materials and fuel sources in its initial phase.

echelon 2y ago

I'm not a fan of the Silurian hypothesis, but maybe it could have predated Theia? More tantalizing, maybe there's a universe-level Silurian analog where our Big Bang was predated by another universe teeming with intelligent life. Maybe we get Silurian'd ourselves.

jjk166 2y ago
Theia hit Earth within 100-150 million years of the formation of Earth. It seems exceedingly implausible that life could not only emerge but go through all the stages of development necessary to achieve advanced intelligence in such a short time compared to what it took the "second" time around.
- wruza 2y ago
  And in that period it wasn’t particularly habitable either. An observer may not find that big of a difference between a recently formed planet and a planet recently hit by another planet.

Terr_ 2y ago

Twist: Oil and coal are the post-breakdown byproducts of the stuff they wanted to clean. :p

yencabulator 2y ago

Well, the carbon our civilization has been burning started forming about 350-300 million years ago (from Carboniferous period, it's in the name), and the Silurian period was 420-440 million years ago, so what Silurians would have had under their tentacles isn't what we bootstrapped our society with. Maybe they used plenty of the under-your-tentacles fuel sources, but it's been a very long time since, and it's hard to tell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

ComplexSystems 2y ago

One answer is that this "initial phase" may have lasted a total of a few hundred years, which is a tiny blip on geological scales. Even with humans, it looks like it's going that way.